1585. Carta de Fernão Lopes, mercador, para Gaspar da Costa, imaginário e caixeiro.

Request letter from Fernão Lopes, a trader, to Gaspar da Costa, a carver and a packman.

The author asks the addressee to hurry and travel by boat to meet him in his part of the São Miguel island. He misses him and also wants him to bring his last carved works.

In 1663, when he was nineteen, Fernão Lopes presented himself before the Holy Office and confessed to the practice of Judaism. Unlike others in his family, his mother and an uncle who were convicted and burnt in an auto-da-fé, Fernão Lopes was set free. But twenty two years later, his neighbour and close friend Gaspar da Costa accused him again of Judaism, and added sodomy, one other practice that the Inquisition prosecuted. Two letters by Fernão Lopes were offered to prove it. The accused was arrested for two years, but a close investigation revealed that Gaspar da Costa was using the Inquisition to get revenge on his former friend, because of an unpaid debt. Fernão Lopes was set free for a second time.